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We gave P a big bday bash yesterday. We'd been telling him for quite sometime that for his 5th birthday, we'll throw him a big party and we did. We invited every one of his classmates plus a few of his nursery friends as well as some desi friends whose kids fall in the 4-6 category. The pains started fairly from the word go. I did not have a complete list of his classmates and made do with an incomplete birthday list compiled by a mom and random inputs by P. Still, I managed to leave two children and when his teacher pointed that out, I furnished extra invitations for the two.

Then there was the RSVP. I thought it was the desis who could not fathom the whole RSVP concept. Turned out, the Brits were too. Or maybe they just decided to ignore the invitation. When there were two full days to the party, I had heard back from 30% of his classmates. But text messages kept coming in till 3 hours to the party from mums of supposedly eager children. We never said 'oh no we can't take them as we've finalised numbers' as in typical desi style, we had ordered extra places.

Then there was the actual event. We arrived at the venue to find some parents already there. Though none of them had deigned to say more than the occasional 'hello' to me till that day, I still knew them all by face and welcomed everyone and tried to get the party started. None of them had a clue who I was. I am sure they must have walked past me most mornings. But none chose to retain an Indian woman's face in their posh brains.

When the kids were busy bowling, S and I went around asking if the parents would like drinks etc, generally trying to play our roles of hosts to our best efforts. The firang had all gathered together, like nails to a magnet and S and I and our desi friends were stood a distance away from them, as always. Every now and again, the two of us would bridge the gap to ask them if they were comfy, to which we normally got curt nods. Though I smiled till my teeth ached, all I got from the other mums was random stern glances but no answering smiles. After a while, I got tired of being sidelined in my own son's party, gave up the Brits as a lost cause, sat down with couple of friends and cousins and watched my son enjoy his party.

Then came the time to say goodbye. Other than P's best mate, whose mum is the only one who treats me like I am human, NONE of the others remembered who the birthday child's mum was. They ALL went to S's cousin and said 'thank you for inviting us to the party', to which she said 'thank you and there's P's mum, why don't you say that to her?'. I ask you! Is it that hard to be nice? I am no alien, I assure you but I swear, last night, any alien would have been welcome in that gathering, not me!

To everyone thinking of the Brits as racist or discriminatory, I say this: they are not racist. I am no Shilpa Shetty but I tell you they are not. Why? Because they can't be arsed. Intense feelings of any sort requires an effort and these lovely folks cannot be bothered to waste half that effort on the likes of me even to discriminate against me; so they just go on like I am invisible. Of course, our paths might literally cross again from Monday morning but they don't give a shit. Even if they collide headlong into me, I would never cause a blip in their radars.